Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Rain - Again

How appropriate! We started this adventure in Raratonga in the rain, and now we are on the desert side of Hawaii and rain is falling. What is more incredible and unusual is that the rain is forecast to fall for another 11 days! Ah well...we decided to make the most of it...the rain is very warm so we decided to brave the elements and go further afield. We started with a drive to Maluka State Park where we took a short hike into a forest of native trees. It was interesting as the trees are growing on lava...so different from the soil covered ground we are used to. This made the path quite rocky with clinkers strewn over its surface. The walk was demanding as a result. There were frogs chirping in the underbrush and song birds serenading us from above, despite the rain that was falling. We hiked in to see an old volcanic steam vent that had sulphur clinging to the rock face and trees growing from its floor. The rain eased up and we made our way further south along the coast. We passed huge expanses of lava flows which continued miles and miles into the ocean. We learned that the brown lava we saw was about 1,500 years old and a forest was reestablishing in it and the black barren lava was from an eruption in 1984.